Tag The Bowery

Spending the Day with the Devil #Storytime

JT Twissel 14 Comments

Recap of the previous post: Daniel introduces the girls to his childhood friend, Marcia who works as a social worker and lives in a carriage house behind the Hari Krishna Institute. She agrees to help them.

By the time Daniel arrived at the gas station the next morning, the Volvo was gone, retrieved, his boss explained, by a couple of harebrained gals. Good, Marcia had worked her social worker magic. She’d either gotten them into some program or convinced them they were not prepared for life in the big, bad city and they’d left for home. That happy thought sustained him through a busy day spent fixing tires for teamsters (their only customers) and helping the boss keep his ledgers balanced. It would have been a good deed mentally rehashed for months. However … corned beef called, corned beef stacked on rye bread with sauerkraut and a drizzle of the kind of cheesy mayonnaise found only at certain delis. An indulgence he couldn’t afford every day but would be his reward. Corned beef on rye.


He savored the thought for several blocks, noting the cool October breezes as his stomach grumbled. Winter had come early and it would be a long one. He pictured the inside of the deli, the white-coated salami and barrels of pickles, as he turned onto Hudson Street. Maybe he’d eat just half the sandwich and give the rest to a street person, some poor soul seated on the curb or hunched in one of the alleyways

But it was not to be. Just outside the deli he ran headlong into two of the girls he’d rescued the night before: the ring-leader and the girl who reminded him of a young Eleanor Roosevelt. “I thought you guys left town.”

“Left town?”

“Or something.”

“Oh no – we’re going to stay with Marcia another night. Nora’s really sick. After you left, she began puking and she puked all night long! We’d finally gotten to sleep around FIVE in the morning! And this other guy showed up. A guy with a funny English accent and a really weird name.”

“Theron?”

“Yeah! So you do know him. He said you would. He called you ‘Daniel Beloved of God’ but he said it kind of sarcastically.”

“Oh my God Daniel. You look totally freaked out. Nora’s up there all alone with him.”

“What?”

“Marcia went to work. She told him he could sleep in her bedroom but had to be gone when she got home. Oh my God, is Nora in danger?”

“You should buy some chicken soup for your friend. Lou makes the best …”

“Daniel!”

“And it’ll cure … listen, Marcia wouldn’t have left if she thought Theron was a danger. But I’ll come back up there with you. I owe her an apology anyway.”

“Daniel, old man!” Theron said after he realized he was being watched and moved away from the Catholic’s daughter, who, despite being sick, had spread herself over the bean bag chairs suggestively. From the beginning Daniel’d been leery of Theron’s tall, dark and handsome movie star looks. It wasn’t jealously. Something was missing. Something, thankfully, Marcia had soon realized but then … she had more experience.

Daniel laid the groceries on the counter as the other two girls crowded on the floor next to their friend. “Where’s Marcia?”

“Oh my. Marcia has had a nasty day dealing with the wretched underbelly of Manhattan. She’s in the shower. And this lovely young lady,” he said with a wink towards a girl who was not much more than a child, has been entertaining me with the stories of their travels. Did you know they are from Reno Nevahda? Have you ever met anyone from Nevahda? Quite unusual really, one only thinks of Nevahda as the home to sagebrush and jack rabbits, now doesn’t one?”

“What are you doing back here?

Theron slid along the wall toward the door. “Oh you mean, why aren’t I in jail. Blimey,I’ve been alluding coppers since I was fourteen. They’ll never catch me. They don’t even know my name. Speaking of stories, that was rather funny this morning, wasn’t it girls?”

“It was four in the morning.”

“Sorry Luv. That’s when me shift at the docks ends. So funny, once they heard my English accent, they weren’t at all afraid of me. It’s those bloody Beatles. Made life ever so easy for us British blokes!”

“You work at the docks?”

“Longshoreman, we’re called.”

It was a ridiculous lie, so ridiculous that Daniel couldn’t help but utter a loud “Ha!”

“Why do you scoff, Mate? I didn’t have the benefits of a seminary education — a mother who thought I was the Second Coming. I’ve been on me own since I was a lad and, aye, I’ve had to do things I’m not proud of but haven’t we all?”

The rumblings of the first evening prayers sounded across the courtyard. Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna, Krishna Vishnu. Theron turned towards the Institute. “Oh my, they’re finished with their supper. That means it’s time for me to head off to work.”

“Are you coming back?” Daniel asked.

“I thought you didn’t live here any more, mate. I thought Marcia got tired of waiting for you to fuck her and kicked you out on your arse.”

The girls gasped.

Don’t respond. Daniel thought. He’s just trying to bait you.

Theron continued. “You’re such a funny old sod. This isn’t the bloody desert. You’re not the friggin’ savior and I’m not the devil. Although I do appreciate the honor of your, shall we say, compliment. But this place is rather crowded with all of us sharing only one rather stinky loo. I think I’ll crash somewhere else. Perhaps at your buddy Frank Frank’s. I hear they always have fresh blood,” he paused and then froze Daniel’s heart with a howl. “Look at Daniel’s face, girls! Hahaha!”

With that, Theron slipped through the door.

After he left, Daniel stepped over to the window but saw nothing in the courtyard. Only shadows. He unscrewed the cheap bottle of wine he’d brought and took a swig just as Marcia emerged from the bathroom.

“Oh good.Theron’s gone Can you believe that guy?”

“Maybe you should lock your doors tonight.”

She ignored him and addressed the girls. “I’ve been thinking. We should call your parents. I bet they’re worried sick about you.”

“Oh yeah. Tell them their daughters are hunky dory. They just spent the day with the Devil.”

“Shit, Daniel! No wonder the girls look so freaked.”

“He killed someone.”

“The police weren’t sure. Besides I don’t want to talk about him anymore. He’s not coming back.” She noticed the bag of groceries.

“Forgive me?” Daniel hadn’t slept the night before. His sole window at the Y was cracked and provided little protection from the rain or the sounds of the city. The walls were so thin he could hear a fellow transient snoring in the next room. Five years he’d spent in New York City practically homeless, figuring it would free him. But it hadn’t. And so the wine quickly gained on him until a dizziness ⏤ borne of eating little and guzzling cheap wine ⏤ soon overcame him. He slumped into one of the bean bag chairs and closed his eyes. He could hear the girls on the phone. Yes, we’re okay. Yes we’re going to Grandpa George’s first thing tomorrow morning. Further and further away they slipped until either he or they were gone.

Two more episodes! Have you guessed the ending? I doubt it!

A Long Time Ago #Storytime

JT Twissel 1 Comment

I guess it’s time to finish posting the story of Daniel and the three girls he takes under his wing on the mean streets of New York City. I’ve been dragging my feet because it’s hard to shift gears from paradise to the Bowery circa 1969 but, I try to finish everything I start, so here goes …

First to recap:

A woman named Sandy has been invited to an art exhibit/memorial for a childhood friend. Once there she’s told by the woman’s son that, although the two women had drifted apart, there was something in each of his mother’s final and very disturbing paintings that she specifically wanted Sandy to see, a face from long ago. October of 1969 to be precise.

Flashback to a rainy evening in October 1969. The scene is a service station in Manhattan’s notoriously dangerous Bowery. Three young women drive up to the pumps and, spotting a young man in the phone booth, plead with him for help. The young man, Daniel, is an enigma: an intelligent and well-educated young man but a drifter. Although he works at the station, he cannot help them because the owner has shut down the pumps and left for the night. Then he remembers he has a friend who, at one time lived not far away, in a place of relative safety. However, getting there proves to be a challenge when a “behemoth” drags one of the girls back into an alleyway. Daniel, who is half the man’s size, is powerless to stop him. The girl waves a crucifix in the man’s face which causes him to roar with laughter and lose his grip on her.

Finally they reach the street his friend once lived on. The rain has let up but they have one more obstacle.

Tomorrow Words Better Left Unsaid.

Daniel’s Dilemma #Storytime

JT Twissel 8 Comments

A recap thus far: Daniel, an obviously well-educated young man, works at a gas station in the Bowery at a time (1969) when that area of Manhattan (NYC) was considered the deadliest part of town. One rainy evening, he steps into the phone booth to make a call. He hears a rapping on the glass doors and assumes that some poor soul is looking for shelter from the rain. But …

It was a girl.  A girl with a Botticelli face dressed in bell-bottoms and a pea jacket standing in the steam rising from the sewers. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen.

Untitled by Sandro Botticelli

“What are you doing here?”  Daniel demanded as he stepped out of the phone booth and into the drizzle.

“We really need gas. We got lost driving around the city and then we saw your station.” 

“We?”

“My friends and I.”   

“There are more of you?”  One was bad enough.

“Yes, they’re in the car.”

Runaways, oh lord, runaways, he thought.  The city was swamped with runaways, all trying to find Greenwich Village and Bob Dylan. Instead, if they were lucky, they ended up at Father Frank’s calling their parents for money for a return trip home.  If they weren’t lucky, they were used and spit out by the godless ones, left to sit on the doorsteps of brownstones, selling oranges or themselves.

“You girls shouldn’t even be in this part of town.” He followed her to their car, a hump-back Volvo with Nevada plates. “You need to get back in your car and leave. This is the Bowery.” 

“But, you don’t understand. We’re really out of gas. We’ve been driving on empty for at least an hour!” 

Empty, out of gas, out of luck, lost.  Probably hungry, dirty and on each other’s nerves. But he couldn’t help.  His hands were tied.  “Look,” he explained, “I can’t sell you gas even if I wanted to. The owner has locked up the pumps and gone home and I don’t have the keys.”

“Oh.  Is there another gas station around here?”

“Not in this part of town!” 

Couldn’t they see where they were?  The dilapidated brick buildings, storefronts boarded up, trash and broken glass filling the gutters.  Were they blind to all of that?  “They all close at sunset anyway.  No one stays open after dark down here.”

By now the other two had fallen from the car and stood over him.  They were so like the girls who arrived every spring after the rye grass had exploded and formed a chartreuse chastity belt around the seminary. Arriving with their families to see the Passion Play.  Girls who came bearing homemade brownies and yeast rolls in their Easter dresses, their long hair flowering, their voices echoing against the tile walls.  Such a flutter of activity that made buckling down for year-end exams ever more difficult.

Passion Play circa 1966ish courtesy of Layton Damiano

But they were far from the seminary. Venus of the Sewers spoke first: “Is there a cheap hotel nearby where we can spend the night?” 

“You girls don’t want to stay in any of the hotels around here.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not prostitutes, are you?”

“What?”

“You’re not prostitutes are you?” 

”No!”

“Then you don’t want to stay in the hotels around here.”

Damn. He had to do something. He couldn’t just leave them at the station.  They’d never survive the night, hunkered down in that small car with winos banging on the steamed windows, begging to be let in for a warm place to sleep.  Maybe he should march them down to Father Frank’s.  They could sleep on the hard wooden benches beneath paintings of saints, and early in the morning have breakfast with the Father:  hard boiled eggs and slices of white bread, strong Lipton tea and, a stern lecture.  In the name of all that is holy, go home to your parents. 

But St. Marks was on the other side of the Village.  By the time they got there —if they got there — they would be soaked to the bone, chilled and susceptible to all kinds of city rot.  Still, what choice did he have? And then he remembered Marcia’s place.

Next time: The Behemoth.